ED Projects Nearly 200K Will Receive Workforce Pell

After the U.S. Department of Education finalized regulations for Workforce Pell last week, the looming question centers on what its impact might be—how quickly and widely Pell Grants will roll out to low-income students in short-term training programs.

Department officials estimated over 100,000 students could benefit in the initial years of the program, though they acknowledged in their final rule that making programs eligible for Workforce Pell will take time and come at some cost for states and higher ed institutions. Programs eight to 15 weeks long are eligible if at least 70 percent of students enrolled complete the program and find a related job within 180 days. State governments also need to determine the programs are high skill, high wage or in demand.

The department projected 184,000 students could take advantage of Workforce Pell in fiscal year 2027–28, the second year of implementing the policy, according to estimates based on an analysis of Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System data. Further, over the next 10 years, the department expects enrollment to increase at least 3 percent to 191,000 by the 2037–38 academic year. Over all, the program is projected to have a net budget impact of $3.2 billion over a decade. (The enrollment estimates reflect the department’s low-end projections. On the high end, officials estimate 13 percent growth.)

That’s a small fraction of the more than seven million students who receive Pell Grants, costing upward of $35 billion. As Workforce Pell gets started, the Pell Grant is expected to face a $5.5 billion shortfall this year, rising to $11.5 billion in fiscal year 2027.

ED also predicted as many as 28,000 existing undergraduate certificate programs could be eligible based on their length, and as many as 2,200 new programs could spring up because of the policy to meet enrollment demand.

Mark D’Amico, professor of higher education at University of North Carolina at Charlotte, said IPEDS data doesn’t fully align with Workforce Pell requirements and doesn’t include noncredit programs that could potentially be eligible, so it’s hard to tell yet how accurate estimates will be over time.

But he expects the first year of the expansion, which begins this summer, to be slow going as states continue to develop their approval processes for programs and, in some cases, the data infrastructure needed to assess whether programs meet the federal guidelines.

D’Amico is also co–principal investigator for the State Noncredit Data Project, focused on tracking community college systems’ data related to noncredit programs, which found that many state community college systems don’t collect the labor market data for noncredit programs that they’ll need for Workforce Pell. Programs also need to meet the criteria for at least a year to be eligible. In North Carolina, only about 4 percent of existing short-term programs are expected to qualify.

States are “doing the important work that needs to be done, but it’s taking time to do that work,” D’Amico said. Some existing programs also don’t meet the length requirement or the criteria, so “states are going to be working to configure their programs for Workforce Pell approval over time. That can’t happen overnight.”

He also emphasized that states and institutions will need to get the word out to students about Workforce Pell and help them navigate the financial aid process, its own undertaking.

Jennifer Stiddard, senior director of government affairs at Jobs for the Future, said because of some of these hurdles, “the presumption has generally been that with Workforce Pell implementation, the number of programs ready to go immediately is going to be rather small in nature.”

But in future years, “if community colleges and other eligible providers are really interested, we expect to see a scaling of programs—and hopefully a scaling of innovative programs that are employer aligned,” she said.

She also believes the speed and growth of the program will partly hinge on how prepared large states with sizable community college systems are to implement Workforce Pell.

“If we see a lot of programs become immediately eligible in big states like Texas and California, that could really start tipping the scales as far as the number of students that we see potentially eligible for a Workforce Pell Grant,” Stiddard said.

But ultimately, a slow rollout has advantages, said David Baime, senior vice president for government relations at the American Association of Community Colleges.

He emphasized Workforce Pell is a complex new policy that requires new bureaucratic processes from the federal government, states and higher ed institutions.

“We’d rather see it started well on a relatively limited basis than see a lot of programs being approved willy-nilly without necessarily being in a position to succeed,” Baime said. “We want to see these programs succeed.” And because Workforce Pell is a permanent program, it has time to expand at a steady pace.

Michelle Van Noy, director of the Education and Employment Research Center at Rutgers University and principal investigator for the State Noncredit Data Project, agreed that if the policy is going to drive “more systemic change” within states—which she hopes it does—they’re going to have to take their time. She believes Workforce Pell has the potential to transform how states collect data on noncredit education and assess credential quality more broadly.

“It’s a moment, and the moment is going to pass,” Van Noy said, “but we have a policy window here to take advantage of.”